The women with the growth mindset—those who thought math ability could be
improved—felt a fairly strong and stable sense of belonging. And they were able to maintain this
even when they thought there was a lot of negative stereotyping going around. One student
described it this way: “In a math class, [female] students were told they were wrong when they
were not (they were in fact doing things in novel ways). It was absurd, and reflected poorly on
the instructor not to ‘see’ the students’ good reasoning. It was alright because we were working
in groups and we were able to give & receive support among us students.... We discussed our
interesting ideas among ourselves.”
The stereotyping was disturbing to them (as it should be), but they could still feel
comfortable with themselves and confident about themselves in a math setting. They could fight
back.
But women with the fixed mindset, as the semester wore on, felt a shrinking sense of
belonging. And the more they felt the presence of stereotyping in their class, the more their
comfort with math withered. One student said that her sense of belonging fell because “I was
disrespected by the professor with his comment, ‘that was a good guess,’ whenever I made a
correct answer in class.”
The stereotype of low ability was able to invade them—to define them—and take away
their comfort and confidence. I’m not saying it’s their fault by any means. Prejudice is a deeply
ingrained societal problem, and I do not want to blame the victims of it. I am simply saying that
a growth mindset helps people to see prejudice for what it is—someone else’s view of them—and
to confront it with their confidence and abilities intact.
Trusting People’s Opinions
Many females have a problem not only with stereotypes, but with other people’s opinions
of them in general. They trust them too much.
One day, I went into a drugstore in Hawaii to buy dental floss and deodorant, and, after
fetching my items, I went to wait in line. There were two women together in front of me waiting
to pay. Since I am an incurable time stuffer, at some point I decided to get my money ready for
when my turn came. So I walked up, put the items way on the side of the counter, and started to
gather up the bills that were strewn throughout my purse. The two women went berserk. I
explained that in no way was I trying to cut in front of them. I was just preparing for when my
turn came. I thought the matter was resolved, but when I left the store, they were waiting for me.
They got in my face and yelled, “You’re a bad-mannered person!”
My husband, who had seen the whole thing from beginning to end, thought they were
nuts. But they had a strange and disturbing effect on me, and I had a hard time shaking off their
verdict.
This vulnerability afflicts many of the most able, high-achieving females. Why should
this be? When they’re little, these girls are often so perfect, and they delight in everyone’s telling
them so. They’re so well behaved, they’re so cute, they’re so helpful, and they’re so precocious.
Girls learn to trust people’s estimates of them. “Gee, everyone’s so nice to me; if they criticize
me, it must be true.” Even females at the top universities in the country say that other people’s
opinions are a good way to know their abilities.
Boys are constantly being scolded and punished. When we observed in grade school
classrooms, we saw that boys got eight times more criticism than girls for their conduct. Boys are
also constantly calling each other slobs and morons. The evaluations lose a lot of their power.
A male friend once called me a slob. He was over to dinner at my house and, while we
were eating, I dripped some food on my blouse. “That’s because you’re such a slob,” he said. I
wang
(Wang)
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